SAN PRANCISCO MAIL SERVICE.

9

E.—No. 4b

instead of to Port Chalmers, in terms of your request, on condition that the proper dates of arrival and departure from each port be observed, and that the subsidy be at the rate of £40,000 per annum. I trust by the time this arrangement ceases the " Dacotah " will have taken up her place on the line, and that such arrangements will be made by the Contractors as will enable them to observe ,the terms of their agreement. I have, Ac, Julius Vogel, J. B. M. Stewart, Esq., AVellington. Postmaster-General.

No. 130. The Hon. W. Gisborne to the Hon. the Colonial Secretary, New South Wales. Colonial Secretary's Office, Sr_, — Wellington, 2nd September, 1871. In regard to the Californian Mail Service, I have the honor to inform you that, pending more vessels being put on the line, and the connections being placed' on a more satisfactory footing, the Government of New Zealand, at the request of the Contractors for the Californian Mail Service, have agreed to allow the contract steamers arriving at Auckland from San Francisco to proceed to Australia, and that wo shall be glad, during the next four months, to carry mails for your Government by those steamers free of cost. In the course of two months, the Government propose to send to New South Wales a representative to confer with your Government on the whole subject of the Californian Mail Service. I have, Ac, The Honorable the Colonial Secretary, W. Gisborne. New South Wales. [Letters of even date and tenor to the Honorables the Chief Secretaries, Victoria and South Australia, and the Honorables the Colonial Secretaries, Tasmania and Queensland.]